


it's never just a minute

by nightswatch



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Feelings, Fluff, Learning To Communicate, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 14:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8212126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightswatch/pseuds/nightswatch
Summary: Nursey and Dex are involved in an undefined something. Maybe it's not that great of an idea to leave it undefined, though.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative title: Nursey and Dex learn how to talk about their feelings. 
> 
> I wrote this because some people wanted a sequel to [my first Nursey/Dex fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8141927), but then it sort of evolved into a fic about them figuring out what they are to each other and it doesn't really line up with the other one 100%, so the connection to that other fic is not official.

Nursey has a feeling that Dex has come to expect him to show up after one of his classes to pull him into a quiet alcove and kiss him once all the other students have dispersed. Much like Nursey has come to expect Dex to hang back after practice to steal a kiss.

It’s something they do now.

Nursey can still feel Dex’s reluctance sometimes, his whole body tense before he eventually melts against Nursey like he’s giving in. He knows that this is new to Dex and if Dex isn’t jumping headfirst into this, if it takes a few tentative kisses before Dex wraps his arms around Nursey to pull him in, well, Nursey can live with that.

He can live with this unspoken arrangement. It’s easy.

They both just go with it. Because they kissed and there’s no going back from that. When they kissed for the first time in Dex’s dorm room, they could have called it an isolated incident, but that’s not what it was.

They kissed again. And again. It keeps happening. It’s like their lips are magnets or some shit. 

Nursey could lie to himself about this, because it would make things indefinitely easier, but he likes that it keeps happening. He likes that Dex doesn’t seem to grow tired of kissing him. He likes kissing Dex. He likes Dex. Not just the kissing, just… everything about him. Even the frowning and the grumbling. It makes him smile and that just makes Dex frown and grumble even more.

So when the universe provides an opportune moment for stolen kisses and hushed voices and wandering hands, they take advantage.

They kiss, tucked into dark nooks under staircases. They kiss, leaning against Nursey’s door, Dex’s fingers digging into Nursey’s sides like he’s the only thing anchoring to this world. They kiss, lying next to each other on Dex’s bed, their homework crumpled between them. They kiss, behind shelves at the far back of the library, dusty tomes hiding them from the rest of the world. They kiss, both of them cold and shivering, snowflakes settling on their hats and coats and melting on their cheeks.

Nursey pulls him inside and says, “Do you have a minute?” And most of the time Dex has homework, or a quiz to prepare for, or a presentation to put together, but he usually also has a minute to spare. Even if it’s more than just a minute. Because it’s never just a minute.

Sometimes Nursey can feel all of Dex’s pent-up anger in his kisses, sometimes they’re hard, sometimes there’s teeth, but for all that anger, sometimes his kisses are surprisingly gentle. When it’s late and Dex is tired, sleepy – seriously, it must be so exhausting to be pissed off at everyone and everything all day long – Dex becomes soft around the edges.

Nursey can’t say that he’s any closer to understanding Dex than he was before, but now that they spend more time together, he feels like he has a chance of getting there.

He’s already made a couple of observations. For one, Dex works too hard. Like, he constantly barrels past the point where it’s time to take a fucking break. Nursey isn’t sure if that’s something he’ll ever fully understand. Sure, his parents have always encouraged him to work hard, but when Nursey needs an hour to listen to music and stare at the ceiling he’ll do just that and won’t continue to work himself into a an early grave. Because sometimes he feels like Dex is doing exactly that.

It’s not actually news. Nursey has been chirping Dex about it for ages, told him to take a nap before he falls asleep on his skates, and most of the time he gets a punch in the arm for his troubles, but now he keeps thinking about pulling Dex into bed with him for a nap, because technically he could if Dex only let him.

The thing is, they’re not really there yet.

Dex has fallen asleep on him before, has spent the night in Nursey’s room – entirely on accident – but it’s not like one of them has actually said something like, “Hey, it’s cool if you stay the night.”

Because this whole thing is low-key freaking Dex out, even though Dex would never admit it, because he’s a stubborn ass who’d rather run headfirst into a wall than admit something to _Nursey_. But that’s cool. Nursey can work with this.

*

“What time’s it?” Dex mutters against Nursey’s lips.

“Dunno.”

“Can you check?”

“Nah,” Nursey says. They’re side by side on Dex’s bed, their legs are tangled and Nursey’s fingers are in Dex’s hair. He’s so not checking what time it is.

Their kisses are lazy today, slow and unhurried. It’s late, that much Nursey knows. It’s late and it’s dark. It’s quiet and it’s snowing and Nursey feels like they’ve been kissing for hours, but he doesn’t want to stop yet.

Anyway, it hasn’t actually been that long. Nursey came up to Dex’s room a while after dinner to see if he could steal a kiss. He ended up stealing several.

Dex pulls away. Ducks his head. Nudges him. “Nursey, come on.”

“Relax, it’s not _that_ late.”

“How would you know?” Dex grumbles. “It’s not like you checked.”

“One more minute,” Nursey says, his lips brushing against Dex’s cheekbone. He leaves a kiss there before he moves back to Dex’s lips. He kisses Dex before he can say anything else. Dex goes along with it. His hand is curled around Nursey’s neck, his thumb slowly stroking over his skin. 

Nursey could get used to this.

But he knows that at this point he’s keeping Dex up and he doesn’t want to be the reason for Dex’s sleep-deprived anger tomorrow morning. So Nursey promises himself that the next kiss will be the last one for tonight. When he leans in, Dex kisses him back, a split-second too late, catching Nursey’s lower lip when he’s already pulling away.

Dex’s face is flushed and his lips are red and that just makes Nursey want to kiss him again. He kind of wants to slip his hands under Dex’s sweater, wants to pull him on top of him and have him much, much closer than he is right now. He wants to kiss all his freckles, the ones on his shoulders and his arms, wants to go exploring, wants to find out what the skin of Dex’s stomach feels like under his fingertips. Or under his lips.

They’ve never talked about taking this any further than those kisses, though. Nursey is the first guy Dex has ever been with and Dex needs, like, a minute. To get used to it. Or maybe a couple of weeks. Doesn’t matter. Nursey doesn’t mind the way things are right now.

It’s chill. There are no expectations. No pressure. He said that from the start. And for the first time Dex didn’t give him shit for that.

Nursey reaches across Dex to check his phone. “It’s nearly eleven.”

“Ugh,” Dex says.

“Past your bedtime?”

“Shut up.”

“Make me,” Nursey says and winks at him.

Dex rolls his eyes.

He doesn’t lean in to kiss Nursey, but he’s not pushing him out of his bed either, so Nursey starts trailing his fingers along Dex’s forearm, from the inside of his wrist up to where the sleeve of his sweater is pushed up.

Dex’s eyelids are fluttering. He sighs. Bites his lip. Closes his eyes.

Nursey likes Dex when he’s like this. He looks perfectly relaxed, a little sleepy, already drifting. _Soft around the edges_. He brushes his fingers through Dex’s short hair because it’s too tempting, because he can’t help himself.

Dex sighs again, but there’s no frustration in it.

“Dex?”

Dex grunts in reply.

“Good night,” Nursey says.

“Good night,” Dex replies and it sounds like a question, like he can’t believe that Nursey is just letting him sleep without being annoying about it.

And, okay, he has reason to be suspicious. But Nursey can see how tired Dex is, he has eyes. “Pick me up when you go to practice tomorrow morning?” Nursey says, which basically translates to, _If you show up a few minutes early, we can make out in my room if you want._

“Yeah,” Dex says.

“Okay,” Nursey says as he climbs over him and off his bed. Dex’s eyes are already closed again. “D’you want me to tuck you in?”

Dex gives him a half-hearted shove. “Fuck off,” he mutters, “and don’t forget to turn off the lights.”

“Nighty night,” Nursey whispers and it earns him a disgruntled huff.

Nursey grins as he shuffles over to the door. He’s really gone for Poindexter. It doesn’t seem like an issue, he doesn’t even mind. Even though it’s not like he’s felt like this about a lot of people in this life, but he’ll just go with it.

He likes Dex. So what, right?

*

Dex can barely keep his eyes open. Nursey has been watching him struggle with his reading for the last fifteen minutes; Dex hasn’t even noticed yet.

They spent the first half hour of the drive back to Samwell bickering about whose turn it was to sit by the window – it’s Nursey’s turn. But Dex likes to sleep with his head leaning against the window, so he conveniently forgot that it was Nursey’s turn.

Lardo quickly shut them up when she stood up and said, “If you don’t quit it right now, I’m making one of you sit in the back of the bus.”

So Nursey is by the window, listening to music and Dex is passive-aggressively doing his reading and very obviously struggling not to fall asleep. He rubs his eyes and blinks at his book. He reads for about ten seconds, then he rubs his eyes again.

Nursey takes off his headphones and nudges Dex. “Hey…”

Dex looks up, apparently too exhausted to be grumpy because Nursey dared to interrupt him. “Huh?”

“You wanna take a nap?”

“What?”

Nursey leans closer to him and takes his book.

“I was reading that,” Dex says, eyes narrowed.

“Read the rest later.” Nursey stuffs the book into the back pocket of the seat in front of Dex. “Come here?”

Dex looks around the bus. Chowder is doing his homework, Ransom and Holster are quietly whispering to each other, Lardo, huddled into a huge Samwell hoodie, is fast asleep, and Bitty, sitting across from them, is texting or tweeting. Behind them, someone – Nursey is pretty sure that it’s Wicks – is snoring.

For a second Nursey thinks that Dex is gonna ignore him and pick up his book again. Sometimes Nursey isn’t sure if Dex works this hard for himself or if it’s because of his family. He gets that Dex wants them to be proud of him, but it puts him on edge. Dex is always stressed, always keyed up.

And Nursey is pretty damn sure that they’re proud of him already. He hasn’t met Dex’s family, not officially, but he does remember when they came to Samwell for a game, remembers Dex’s mom hugging him afterwards, remembers the sheepish smile on Dex’s face.

Still. That boy just needs to take a break sometimes.

On some days Nursey wants to tell him that he’s good enough, no matter what, on days when he looks like he hasn’t slept all night because he stayed up to study, on days when he’s frustrated because he doesn’t have time for his extra credit work, and on days when he messes up at practice. But he’s not sure if Dex would even care when it’s coming from him.

Dex, staring at his textbook, gives the most minimal of shrugs and scoots closer to Nursey, who shifts to make sure that Dex can lean against him properly. Dex clearly admits defeat when he slumps against him. Nursey wraps an arm around his middle. Dex freezes.

“Um…”

“What?” Nursey asks. Okay, yeah, they’re on the bus. They haven’t told the team. What would they tell them anyway? _We make out sometimes?_ Whatever, this isn’t the first time Dex is sleeping on him and Nursey honestly couldn’t give less of a shit. “Chill,” he whispers to Dex, “nobody cares.”

People fall asleep on each other on this very busy all the damn time.

Dex seems to remember that as well because he only says, “If you say _chill_ one more time–”

“Go to sleep, Dex.”

Dex shifts to get comfortable, apparently too tired to put up a fight, and Nursey closes his eyes.

They usually don’t cuddle. Not much. It’s more of a kissing-and-cuddling thing that happens at the same time when they’re in one of their dorm rooms and maybe they’ll lean against each other when they’re watching a movie together, but it’s nothing like this. Dex is tucked against him, a warm weight against Nursey’s chest, and Dex’s fingers are curled around the arm that Nursey has wrapped around him.

They should do this more often. Their loosely defined _something_ doesn’t really have any terms and conditions and, without really talking about it, they’ve decided that they’d be keeping things low-key for now, but Nursey thinks this should be part of their non-existent deal.

No one has to know about it. But Nursey likes having Dex curled against him.

He eventually drifts off, Dex’s hair tickling his chin, more comfortable than he should be crammed into a bus seat with another guy half on top of him.

It’s Bitty who wakes them up when they’re back at Samwell, just a quiet, “Guys, we’re back,” that has Nursey jerking awake immediately. Dex barely even stirs. The hint of a smile flits over Bitty’s face before he grabs his bag, not paying them any mind.

“Dex,” Nursey says, “wake up.”

“Just a minute,” Dex mumbles.

“I’m not gonna carry you off this bus, Poindexter.”

“Wha– Oh.” Dex blinks and sits up in slow-motion. “Right. We’re back?”

Ollie and Wicks snort at Dex as they walk by, muttering something about Sleeping Beauty that has Dex scowling.

“We’re back,” Nursey confirms.

*

“I’m studying.”

Nursey knows that Dex is studying. It’s not a secret. He has a book in his lap and his notes are strewn all over his bed. There are at least ten differently colored pens. One of them is tucked behind Dex’s ear and it’s somehow more distracting than everything else, more distracting than the smudge of ink on his hand, and more distracting than the look of immense concentration on Dex’s face.

One hand carefully placed between Dex’s notes, Nursey tried to lean in for a kiss. But Dex isn’t having it. Won’t even turn his head. “ _You_ should be studying as well,” Dex adds.

“We’re studying on your bed,” Nursey says and bumps his nose against Dex’s cheek. “What did you think would happen?”

“That we’d be studying like we said we would.”

“You’re no fun,” Nursey says, but retreats to his corner of the bed.

Dex glares at him. “Look, I have no idea how I’m going to survive all of those exams and I can’t fail, I seriously can’t, and you might not care or whatever, but I really need to–”

“Hey,” Nursey says, “it’s fine. Sorry.”

Dex visibly deflates. Then he nods – _moving on_ – and picks up another pile of notes.

Nursey sneaks out to go to the bathroom. When he gets back, Dex is still buried under his notes. He _so_ needs a break.

Nursey actually suggested that they could go out for hot chocolate last night and Dex threw a pen at him. He’s surprised that Dex is letting him study with him again today, because yesterday, when they were downstairs in Nursey’s room, he was all like, “Nursey, stop tapping your pen like that,” and, “Nursey, can you stop poking my thigh, for the love of God,” and, “Nursey, if you don’t stop making those noises I will murder you.”

He could have just left.

But that probably would have been too easy and Dex loves a good reason to grumble.

He doesn’t grumble as much today. He’s agitated and fidgety and Nursey has spent the last half hour wondering how quickly Dex would kill him if he pulled him into a hug and told him to take a deep breath.

It’s nearly midnight when Dex starts stacking his notes and books and puts them on his desk. He looks at Nursey, still on his bed.

Right. This is Dex’s room. He should probably go. “Well… I guess I’ll…” He nods at the door.

Dex yawns. “I’ll pick you up for practice, yeah?”

“Sure, yeah.” Nursey tilts his head, considering Dex. He shoves away his books. “Do you have a minute? Just one teensy minute?”

“It’s never just a minute with you,” Dex says, but sits back down on his bed.

Nursey pulls at his sweater and Dex comes easily, his lips eager, insistent. It’s almost like he’s been waiting for this, like he’s forced himself not to do this all evening because it would have been a distraction. Their kiss is messy and Nursey can’t decide where to put his hands; he wants to put them everywhere. He groans when Dex’s fingers tighten in his hair. Dex pulls away, his eyes wide, his breath coming quickly.

“I…” Dex doesn’t go on, just crawls into Nursey’s lap and kisses him again, the fabric of Nursey’s hoodie bunched between his fingers.

Dex pushes him down; Nursey goes at the slightest nudge of Dex’s hands. Dex stares at him for a moment, his lips red, his eyes tired. He leans down and the next kiss he gives Nursey is softer, less urgent.

“We both have to get up for practice,” Dex mutters against Nursey’s lips.

“One more minute?” Nursey says.

“Yeah,” Dex says. He sounds breathless and it’s doing all kinds of terrible things to Nursey.

It turns into more than a minute, but their kisses grow lazier and Dex eventually slides off Nursey, just halfway, still close enough that he can bury his head in the crook of Nursey’s neck. Which is, y’know, really nice. Dex’s breath tickles Nursey’s skin and he’s idly toying with the strings of Nursey’s team hoodie.

“I just wanna sleep for a day,” Dex says. He presses a kiss to Nursey’s neck and it leaves Nursey’s skin tingling.

“We should,” Nursey says.

“Hm,” Dex says and it means _you know perfectly well that we can’t_ and also _I’m about to fall asleep_.

Nursey says, “I should go,” but he doesn’t, because he doesn’t want to push Dex off and because he feels boneless and he’s not sure if he could get up even if he tried.

“You should stay,” Dex says. He’s quiet for a moment, then he adds, “I mean, we both have to get up for practice and… yeah.”

“Yeah,” Nursey echoes. “Okay.”

Dex hums and crawls off his bed. “I’m gonna go brush my teeth. And…”

“Yeah, me too,” Nursey says. “I’ll meet you back here.”

Nursey has no idea why he’s nervous as he goes downstairs to brush his teeth. It’s not a big deal. They’ve slept in the same bed before. Although that was an accident. This isn’t. This is… something different.

Dex is already in bed when Nursey gets back to his room and he’s turned on the bedside lamp. He’s wearing a threadbare gray shirt that’s a little too big on him, the logo faded. It looks a bit like a lobster. Nursey is still wearing his jeans and his hoodie. They’re not gonna sleep in their clothes. Duh. He forgot about that. How the hell did he forget about that?

Nursey clears his throat. “Can I borrow a shirt?” He could just go back downstairs and get one, but it’s late and maybe, just maybe, he likes the thought of borrowing one of Dex’s.

“Oh, uh…” Dex shrugs. “Sure.”

Nursey picks up the next best one, a short-sleeved Samwell Hockey shirt that’s draped over the back of Dex’s chair. His hoodie goes where the shirt was, then he pulls it on. “Thanks.”

“I could have found you a clean one,” Dex says, but there’s no judgement in his tone. He cheeks are faintly pink.

“This one’s fine.”

Nursey shucks off his jeans and pulls off his socks, then he slips under the covers with Dex before he can change his mind. But why would he change his mind anyway? It’s chill.

Dex flicks off the light.

How did they fit into a twin bed together the last time they were doing this? There was basically no space between them, that’s how. Now they’re face to face and their knees are getting in the way of each other and Nursey can feel how Dex’s sheets don’t quite cover him, cold air prickling at his back where his – _Dex’s_ – shirt has ridden up.

This is not gonna work.

Nursey scoots closer, fits his head under Dex’s chin and hooks a leg around him. Much better.

“I set an alarm,” Dex says, his voice low.

“Did you have to?” Nursey mumbles into Dex’s shirt.

“Oh my god, stop.”

Silence stretches out between them, then Nursey says, “I could help you with your flashcards tomorrow.”

“Only if you don’t throw them on the floor when I get something right, it took me ages to find them all last time.”

“I’ll consider not doing that.”

Dex nudges his side. “Go to sleep, Nurse.”

“You go to sleep,” Nursey says.

Dex only huffs and pulls him closer. Nursey is fast asleep within a minute.

He wakes up sometime in the middle of the night when he tries to turn over and nearly falls off the bed. It takes him a second to remember that he’s with Dex. He scoots back towards the middle of the bed, bumping into Dex, who mutters something that sounds suspiciously like _fuck off_. Scraping at the edges of wakefulness, Dex wraps an arm around Nursey’s middle. Nursey can feel his breath, warm and steady, on the back of his neck.

Getting up in the morning is torturous. Dex is still clinging to him when his alarm rings, much too loud, right next to Nursey’s head. Dex reaches over him and turns it off, mutters, “One more minute,” and noses along the back of Nursey’s neck, soft and sleepy.

He could get used to this as well.

It’s still dark outside when they climb out of bed and it makes getting up so much worse, because the world is still asleep and why should they be awake when not even the sun is. Okay, Nursey knows that that’s not how the sun works, but still.

They don’t talk much before Nursey slips out of Dex’s room to go downstairs. He leaves his hoodie hanging over Dex’s chair. He doesn’t give back the shirt. They meet downstairs to go to practice together a while later. As they walk to Faber, Dex reaches out to take Nursey’s hand, his fingers cold.

Nursey can almost feel something shift between them.

*

“I need to–”

If Dex is still able to talk, Nursey is definitely doing something wrong.

“–get back to–”

He sucks at Dex’s bottom lip and Dex gasps. That’s better.

“–my essay,” Dex still manages.

“Just one more minute,” Nursey says, because that always works like a charm. “Anyway, you don’t have to hand it in until next Monday, that’s still, like, five days.”

“But–”

“We just got back from break. Chill, William.”

“You’re the bane of my existence,” Dex says.

The thing is, Dex is on top of him. Nursey isn’t exactly keeping him from moving. Anyway, Dex is the one who came by. Said he was taking a quick break. This wasn’t Nursey’s idea.

Nursey made a joke about marking it in his calendar, this momentous occasion. Dex is taking a break. Voluntarily. It’s entirely unheard of. “Did aliens abduct you while you were home for Christmas?” Nursey asked.

And Dex rolled his eyes and said, “I’m leaving.”

Nursey pulled him into bed with him before he got a chance to.

He kinda missed Dex. There were instances that he now tries not to think about where he actually thought about jumping on whatever public transport available and go to Dex’s place. But he didn’t even have Dex’s address and maybe it would have been a teensy bit weird if Nursey had suddenly shown up on his doorstep.

So he called him. The first time Dex answered his phone he was out of breath and slightly grumpy. Helping his sisters decorate the Christmas tree. He called Nursey back later that day, just before midnight. They got into a habit of it. It wasn’t a regular thing, but it was _a thing_.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, William,” Nursey says. “You’re clearly enjoying my presence.”

“If you call me _William_ one more time, I’ll…”

“You’ll what?”

Dex kisses him and Nursey doesn’t try to call him William again. But Nursey is feeling particularly daring today so he lets his hands wander, all the way down Dex’s sides and along the curve of his ass. Dex makes a choked noise that shoots through Nursey like a bolt of lightning. Dex grinds down against him in reply and every coherent thought that Nursey has ever had scrambles out of reach and into nonexistence.

“Holy _shit_.”

Dex blinks down at him, his lips parted and Nursey just can’t wrap his head around the fact that Dex is looking at him like this, like… yeah, no coherent thoughts to be found around here.

He slips his fingers under Dex’s shirt. “Can this come off?”

“Okay,” Dex breathes out and the shirt goes; Nursey’s follows a moment later. There a split-second of hesitation in which Dex looks like he doesn’t know what to do, then he dips his head down to kiss the hollow between Nursey’s collarbones.

Nursey likes where this is going, he likes it a lot.

He’s thought about this. About Dex, and all that pale skin, and all those freckles. He didn’t bring it up, mainly because he told himself that he’d just go with this, whatever it is, because Dex is still kinda new to it all and Nursey doesn’t want to push him into anything he doesn’t want.

Dex looks up and there’s a question in the look on his face.

Nursey has no idea what he’s asking, though, and this is really not a good time for guessing games. “Do you want me to…” He trails off. “What do you want to do?”

“I…” Dex splays his fingers on Nursey’s chest. “Can I–”

Dex purses his lips when his phone starts ringing. It’s on Nursey’s nightstand. He wants to tell Dex to ignore it, but the name on the screen is _Mom_ and it seems to distract Dex, so Nursey takes the phone and hands it to him.

“Uh…” Dex says. He quickly fishes his shirt off the floor and pulls it on before he answers the call. “Hey, Mom.”

Dex shifts off Nursey as he listens.

“No, it’s fine.” Dex picks at the hem of his shirt. “Yeah, I’m just… uh, I’m hanging out with a friend.”

Nursey smirks at him. Dex glares.

“Nursey,” Dex says. “Yeah, from the team.”

Nursey wiggles his eyebrows at him. Dex glares even harder than before.

“Umm…” There’s a beat, then Dex says, “Oh, yeah, I guess I did.”

Nursey sits up and slowly slides his hand closer to Dex. When Dex notices he clamps his own hand down on Nursey’s and there’s a warning in the look he shoots him.

“Nah, I don’t need it,” Dex says. “Yeah, I’m sure. Thanks, though.”

Nursey can hear Dex’s mom say, _Bye, Will_ , _love you,_ on the other end of the line.

“Bye, Mom,” Dex says and hangs up. He clears his throat. “Apparently I forgot some stuff at home. Nothing important, though.” He scrubs his fingers through his hair, clearly nervous. “I’m gonna head back upstairs. I really need to finish that essay.”

“Oh,” Nursey says. Maybe he was hoping that they’d just pick up where they left off.

“Sorry,” Dex says.

It’s the apology that really throws him because Dex just doesn’t do that, but Dex is too quick to leave for Nursey to ask what the hell is going on.

They walk to practice together the next morning, but Dex keeps his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket. Afterwards, Dex doesn’t stick around to wait for him, just tells him to hurry up. During breakfast, Dex has a textbook open next to his bowl of cereal.

“Dex,” Nursey whispers.

Dex looks up. “Yeah?”

Nursey leans closer so no one else will hear and asks, “Do you wanna come by later?”

“I actually have some stuff to take care of.”

“Oh, okay.”

Nursey doesn’t push it, even though Dex usually isn’t so secretive about what he’s doing. He says, _I’m going to the library_ , or, _I have an appointment with my tutor_. Whatever, it’s not like he owes Nursey any explanations.

When Nursey swings by Dex’s room the next day, Dex says something about having homework to do. He doesn’t ask Nursey if he wants to hang out anyway and just wait until he’s done. Dex is pretty generous with his time, even when he doesn’t really have any time left. Nursey doesn’t mind hanging out in Dex’s room while he’s studying. He likes being around him.

The day after, Nursey waits for Dex after his last class of the day.

Dex stops in his tracks when he sees him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Nursey says. “Do you wanna go to Annie’s or something?”

“Um…”

“You’re busy?” Nursey guesses.

“Sort of,” Dex mutters.

“Dex, are we still cool?” The question tumbles out of Nursey’s mouth before he’s even a hundred percent sure that he wants to ask it. “Like, is this…” He points at Dex, then at himself. “Are we cool?”

“Yeah, no, we’re fine,” Dex says. “I just have to, you know, study.”

“I could help you. I won’t do questionable things to your flashcards and I won’t try to distract you either, I promise.”

Honestly, Nursey just wants to sit next to Dex and maybe press their knees together. It’s embarrassing how much he misses being around Dex. Well, he’s still around Dex all the time during practice and when they’re eating with the team, but he wants their study breaks back. He wants to kiss Dex in deserted hallways and after practice when the rest of the team has already left. He wants Dex to take his hand again when they walk to Faber in the morning.

“Nah, I’m good… I…” Dex looks around and, when he finds the hallway empty, he gives Nursey a lingering kiss. “I’ll see you at dinner, okay?”

It’s okay, they’re okay. Dex wouldn’t kiss him if they weren’t. “Okay,” Nursey says.

Part of him still wants to ask Dex if he did something wrong, though.

*

It isn’t until the next kegster at the Haus that things go back to normal. At least in a way. Everyone around them is on a good way to being well and truly wasted and Nursey and Dex aren’t exactly sober either, which is probably why Dex goes without a complaint when Nursey pulls him up the stairs and into the bathroom.

Nursey has Dex pinned against the door, has his lips on Dex’s neck, one leg between Dex’s, and his hands under his shirt. Dex’s fingers and knotted in his hair and it feels so good that Nursey thinks he’s about to die right here, right now.

It seems like a great way to go.

He bites at Dex’s jaw and moves down his neck. He wants to leave a bruise right there, so he bites down, lightly at first, and Dex makes the greatest noise Nursey has ever heard in his entire life.

“I want to…” Nursey takes a deep breath. He wants so many things. All of them with Dex. He wants him so much.

Dex pulls him into another kiss and it’s sloppy and so, so good. Nursey wants to stay in this bathroom for the rest of his life.

“We should go back downstairs,” Dex says because of course he has to go and destroy all of Nursey’s drunken hopes and dreams.

“Just one more minute, come on,” Nursey says and kisses that spot behind Dex’s ear, feels him shiver, grins, and steals another kiss, a languid one, a gentle one. “I haven’t kissed you in forever.”

“So I just imagined that yesterday?”

“That wasn’t a real one and you know it,” Nursey says and he doesn’t like that he sounds petulant but it _wasn’t_ a real one. They kissed on their way back from the library but it was just a peck on the lips, it was half-hearted.

And Dex does know it because he doesn’t reply.

Nursey straightens up a little, pulls back a few inches. “Are you gonna tell me what’s wrong?”

“Do you really wanna talk about this right now?”

Okay, maybe now is not the best time to have a serious conversation. Because they’re both stumbling along the line between tipsy and drunk and they’re in a bathroom.

Nursey leans his head against Dex’s shoulder because his head is spinning and he doesn’t like the way Dex is looking at him right now. He feels like he has all of this half figured out, but he can’t think.

“Hey,” Dex says and rubs his hand up and down Nursey’s back. “You okay?”

 _No, not really_ , Nursey wants to say. He wants this to be easy. He wants to not be drunk so he can actually put all of this into words.

Outside the bathroom door, Chowder calls, “Nursey? Dex? Are you guys up here?”

“We’ll come back down in a second,” Dex shouts.

“Cool,” Chowders shouts back.

It takes Nursey a moment to bring himself to let go of Dex and they trudge back downstairs without saying another word. Chowder doesn’t ask what they were doing up there. Nursey gets himself another beer and ends up sitting on the couch between two girls he’s definitely met before. He can’t remember their names for the life of him.

“So you’re on the hockey team?” one of them asks.

They talk for a while and Nursey doesn’t miss that she’s inching closer to him with practically every word she says.

He’s almost expecting it when she asks, “Do you want to get out of here?”

Nursey does want to get out of here. But he wants to get out of here with Dex. And he doesn’t even know where Dex is. Nursey fucked up somewhere along the line, he understands as much, but he has no idea what happened.

“I sort have a… thing. With someone,” Nursey says. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have asked–”

“Hey, it’s cool,” Nursey says.

She smiles and produces a pen from somewhere. “Just in case that thing doesn’t work out for you,” she says and writes down her number on Nursey’s palm. Then she says goodbye and she and her friend vanish into the crowd.

Nursey stares down at the black numbers. He wants it to work out, though.

He goes looking for Dex.

Nursey finds him in the kitchen, where he and Chowder are looking on as Ransom draws flowers on the cheek of a fast-asleep Holster. He leans against Dex and Dex lets him, swaying ever so slightly. Dex’s arm goes around his waist in a vain attempt to steady him. Nursey ends up stumbling backwards against the kitchen counter, Dex still holding on to him.

“I want to sleep,” Nursey says. He wants to sleep and he wants Dex to sleep next to him.

“Come on,” Dex says and shoves Nursey out of the kitchen. Chowder doesn’t follow them. They end up in an armchair by the basement door. There’s no one back here and Nursey has no idea why that armchair isn’t in the living room where it belongs, but it doesn’t matter because Dex sits down and pulls Nursey into his lap.

They stay there for the rest of the night.

*

When he wakes up in the morning, Nursey feels like he’s one wrong move away from the cold embrace of the grave. There’s a dull hammering inside his skull that only gets worse when he tries to move. He is still squashed onto that armchair with Dex.

He needs to get up and stretch. Dex wakes up when he stands up but Nursey supposes that was unavoidable.

The Haus is quiet; the light that seeps in through the windows tells him that it’s still early in the morning. No one else will be up for a while. Nursey groans as he stretches. He’s never ever sleeping on an armchair again. Which is definitely something that someone who will once again sleep on an armchair a month from now would think.

Dex blinks up at him, still in the armchair, rumpled and tired.

Nursey thinks he might be a bit in love with him. He blinks back down at Dex. Whoa. Okay.

He doesn’t really know what to do with that thought right now. It’s not the sort of thought you want to jump on you when you’re hungover, but it’s also exactly the kind of thought that would totally, one hundred perfect catch you unawares when you least expect it.

Because, sure, he knew that he liked Dex. In a _I want to make out with all the time_ kind of way. And even that caught him by surprise. Because it’s Dex. Nursey never saw himself ending up liking someone like Dex. He never saw himself ending up being a little bit in love with someone like Dex either.

It’s fine. Nursey can deal with feelings. He can, he totally can.

But whatever this is between him and Dex, they need to sort it out. Because it’s gnawing at him. He’s been tense for days and he hates it. Nursey wants to be on the same page as Dex. And he really wants to do this right.

“Do you have a minute?” Nursey asks.

“It’s never just a minute with you,” Dex says but lets Nursey pull him to his feet. “Do you wanna get breakfast?”

Actually, Nursey feels nauseous when he even so much as thinks about breakfast, but he nods anyway. Bitty will probably cook breakfast for whoever stuck around after the kegster, but that might take a little while longer.

They both sneak upstairs to the bathroom, then they look for their coats. They find Chowder sleeping on the couch as they sneak to the door.

Dex raises his eyebrows at him. “He has a room upstairs.”

Nursey snorts and immediately regrets it. His head is killing him. Everything hurts. Laughing hurts the most.

They slip outside and find the entire street deserted. It’s cold and it’s too quiet. Nursey shoves away the thought that it feels a bit like the end of the world. “You wanna go to that place that Bitty likes so much?” he asks to break the silence.

“Jerry’s? Yeah, sure.”

Nursey huddles close to Dex as they walk to Jerry’s and Dex lets him and Nursey doesn’t want to be relieved but he is. They don’t talk much and Nursey is grateful for it because he’s still trying to figure out what the hell is going on his head. It’s difficult with the dull hammering that just won’t stop.

Jerry’s, when they get there, is about as deserted as the rest of campus. It’s Sunday and it’s too early for everything. They find a booth far away from the only other two people who are around. They’re obviously a couple, chattering animatedly over breakfast.

Dex is quiet, which probably has more to do with the early hour than with anything else. He never takes his eyes off Nursey, though. And he frowns when he sees the smudged numbers on Nursey’s hand.

“Oh, that…” Nursey shrugs. “I told her that I was, y’know, with someone.”

Dex’s frown only deepens but then a waitress comes by to hand each of them a menu and Nursey isn’t the target of Dex’s frowning anymore.

Nursey is barely even awake when he orders a coffee and pancakes and extra bacon a couple of minutes later. He’s barely even awake when he hooks his foot around Dex’s under the table either.

Dex doesn’t pull his foot away.

They don’t talk, not yet, although they both know that they will sooner rather than later. Because now neither of them is drunk and they’re not in a bathroom. There’s never been a better time.

It’s only when he’s done with his food and feels a different kind of nauseous that Nursey says, “Dex.”

Dex looks up from his cup of coffee. “Hm?”

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Nursey says.

Dex makes a face. Nursey knows that face. It’s the _I’m freaking out about kissing a boy_ face. Nursey has seen it before, although now it probably means something slightly different. Dex glances over his shoulder, then he stares back down at his coffee for what feels like forever.

He fiddles with his napkin.

Then his eyes flick back to Nursey and he says, “No one in my family knows that I’m gay. And…” He pushes at his last piece of bacon. “I didn’t even know I was for the longest time. And I’ve never really thought about telling them. And then I went home for Christmas and we talked every day and all I could think about was… I don’t know. I want them to meet you. Because, God, I think they’d actually _like_ you.”

Nursey knows that now is not a good time to smile, so he tries to bite it down.

“And then my mom called and you were right there and I… I panicked. I don’t even know why. This isn’t– I’ve never done this before. The thing is, what would I even tell them, right?” Dex isn’t looking at him anymore and now he sounds mad. “Because this is… Nursey, what the hell is this? And don’t say that it’s _chill_ or some bullshit like that.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“So?”

“So, I told that girl yesterday that I had a thing with someone else.”

“So it’s _a thing_. I thought you might have a better word for it with all the books you read.”

Nursey chews on his bottom lip. “It’s an _exclusive_ thing?”

“You’re terrible at this.”

“I never said I wasn’t.”

Dex still looks grumpy but somewhat appeased and Nursey can work with that. He nudges Dex’s foot under the table. “We don’t have to tell anyone about our exclusive thing.” This thing, even though it’s now officially exclusive, still doesn’t have a fine print. There’s nothing they _have_ to do.

Dex pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay, but if… I don’t know, in a couple of weeks, or months… if I call my mom and tell her that I have a boyfriend–” He hesitates for a moment. “Is that part of that exclusive thing?”

“I guess,” Nursey says. He’s so far out of his comfort zone that he’s basically on Mars, but hey, this is Dex, and he _likes_ Dex – fine, cards on the table, he’s a little bit in love with Dex – and if Dex wants to call him his boyfriend, then Nursey will get used to it one way or another. Because Nursey wants this. He wants Dex. He’ll even take the terms and conditions.

“You _guess_?” Dex groans and hides his face behind his hands. “Why did it have to be you, of all people?”

Nursey allows himself to smile now. He’s glad that it’s him, of all people.

“I still don’t know how to do this, not really,” Dex says. He mutters it like it’s a secret. Then his lips twitch. “But apparently neither do you.”

Okay, so maybe Nursey really has no idea how to do this. He’s just gonna go with it; he’s good at that. “Well, good talk, William,” he says. “We should do that more often.” He doesn’t want to turn it into a joke. They really should talk more often. “Do you wanna come back to mine and… chill?”

Dex looks like he wants to hurl his fork at Nursey. Then he leans back in his seat with a sigh. “Fine,” he says.

“Good,” Nursey says. He steals Dex’s last piece of bacon; Dex wasn’t gonna eat it anyway.

They split the check because Nursey is too hungover to argue with Dex about it. When they get back to his room, he’s gonna lie down on top of Dex so he can’t go anywhere and then he’s gonna take the greatest nap of all time.

As they leave Jerry’s, Nursey takes Dex’s hand.

“I missed that,” Nursey says.

Maybe he should say these things out loud more often.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are very much appreciated :)
> 
> I'm @zimmermaenner on tumblr if anyone wants to say hi!


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